Rethinking the commercial space of Parisian railway stations: Toward a hybrid ecosystem
Résumé
Tokyo, Saint Pancras, Atocha, Gare Montparnasse... Railway stations are being transformed
into commercial spaces, which are contributing to the strong growth of the Travel Retail
sector (Xerfi, 2018). Representing one third of sales in transit areas, they are growth drivers
for retailers, sources of revenue up to five times more efficient than shopping malls (Gaillard
and Marton, 2018). Considered consumption spaces, transit areas are the subject of
multidisciplinary research in sociology, geography and marketing (Bergadaà, 2009; Capo,
2015; Dang Vu and Jeaneau, 2008). Nevertheless, to our knowledge no retail research has
focused on the railway station as an ecosystem─ conducive to new modes of consumption via
smartphone ─ combining mobility and ubiquity called mobiquity1 by Schierz et al. (2010).
Our research echoes the calls for research about transformation of public spaces in
marketplaces (Castilhos and Dolbec, 2018). Framed by business ecosystem literature, and
nourished by ethnographic data collection through observation and interviews with various
stakeholders, this work aims firstly to characterize a hybridization between a travel-oriented
ecosystem and a consumption-oriented ecosystem within the newly refurbished Parisian
railway stations, and secondly to understand if, and how, connected travellers become
consumers by interacting with this ecosystem.